“Is there any one there?  Any one within hearing?  I say Isabel, Isabel, jezabel, are you all dead and d——­d?”

“No, your honor, not yet—­some of us at least,” replied a shrewd-looking lad of about eighteen, nicking his appearance.

“Ha, Lanty—­it’s you, is it?  What do you mean by that, you devil’s pick-tooth?  Where’s Isabel?  Where’s Jezabel?  Playing her pranks, I suppose—­where is she, you devil’s tooth-brush? eh?”

“Do you want your brandy and wather, sir?”

“Brandy and h—­l, you scoundrel!  Where’s Miss Puzzle?”

“Why, she’s just rinsing her mouth, sir, wid a drop of “—­

“Of what, you devil’s imp; but I know—­she’s drinking—­she’s drunk, you young candidate for perdition?”

“I’m not an ould one, sir, any how; as to Miss Fuzzle, sir, she bid me say, that she’s doin’ herself the pleasure of drinkin’ your health”—­

“Ha, ha, ha!  Oh, if I were near her—­that’s all! drinking my health!  She’s tipsy, the she scoundrel, she never sends me that message unless when she’s tipsy”—­

“Not tipsy, your honor, only unwell—­she’s a little touched wid the falling sickness—­she always takes it after rinsing her mouth, sir; for she’s fond of a sweet breath, your honor.”

“Ah, she’s a confounded blackguard—­a living quicksand, and nothing else.  Lanty, my lad, if the Mississippi was brandy grog, she’d dry the river—­drinking at this hour!—­well, never mind, I was drunk myself last night, and I’m half drunk yet.  Here, you devil’s tinder box, mix me a glass of brandy and water.”

“Wouldn’t you do it better yourself, sir?”

“No, you whelp, don’t you see how my hands, and be hanged to them, tremble and shake.  Put in another glass, I say—­carry it to my mouth now; hold, you croil—­here’s the glorious, pious, and immortal memory!  Ho!  Lanty, there’s nothing like being a good Protestant after all—­so I’ll stand to glorious Bill, to the last; nine times nine, and one cheer more! hurra!”

He then laid himself back, and attempted to whistle the Boyne Water, but having only one tusk in front, the sound produced resembled the wild whistle of the wind through the chink of a door—­shrill and monotonous; after which he burst out into a chuckling laugh, tickled, probably, at the notion of that celebrated melody proving disloyal in spite of him, as refusing, as it were, to be whistled.

At this moment Miss Isabel, or as he most frequently called her Miss Jezabel Puzzle, came in with a gleaming eye and an unsteady step—­her hair partially dishevelled, and her dress most negligently put on.  The moment Deaker saw her, his whole manner changed, notwithstanding his previous violence—­the swagger departed from him, his countenance fell, and he lay mute and terror-stricken before her.  It was indeed clear that her sway over him was boundless, and such was the fact.  On this occasion she simply looked at him significantly, held up her hand in a menacing attitude, and having made a mock curtesy, immediately left the room.